We finished up the Satir Model training today. It was a successful workshop, with every participant feeling like they got much more than their money’s worth. This post is about what a great job my friend Sasha did with translating between Russian and English. Sophia also did well when Georgian translation was required, and the four of us worked great as a team, but I particularly want to admire Sasha for now.

What was great about his performance is that he did not function as a translator. He was an integral part of the facilitation team. Steven was clear with him before the workshop began that he was not here to be a translator. That what we needed was someone who was going to be part of the facilitation team – which was Steven, me, Sasha, and Sophia.

About half-way through the workshop Sasha asked me how I thought he was doing. I told him I thought he was doing an amazing job. I could tell that he was not just translating literal words. Sasha has a PhD in Psychology and has been studying the Satir Model for many years with Steven, Laura Dodson, and others. When I or Steven would explain a concept in English, then Sasha would transform it into words that convey the message in Russian. A direct translation would rarely, if ever, suffice. When this happens, it is like having two people saying one thing.

For example, teaching is a creative art, and when I communicate a concept, the original words in English contain my creation of how to teach the topic. Then Sasha adds his creativity to the message as it is communicated in Russian. In this way, that set of words has meaning that makes sense and is able to be assimilated by more people, because it encompasses two people’s teaching style.

Because of Sasha’s high level of competence, there were also plenty of times where he would be able to give important information in Russian without me or Steven saying a word. There were a couple people who at times were not able to understand the concept in Russian, and needed to hear it in their native Georgian. Then, it would start with English, and Sasha would transform to Russian, and Sophia would transform to Georgian. That was interesting. And surprisingly, not a hinderance. This is due purely to how good Sophia and Sasha are.

Here is a picture of  Sasha (aka Dr. Alexander Cheryomukhin), who is not only an excellent facilitator, but a dear man who is fun to be around and has a great sense of humor. He humored my photographer-self when I requested this model pose of my euro-friend dressed in euro-attire standing in a euro-city.

Another good workshop day here in Tbilisi. During the day, I had a couple connect-the-dots moments, where I saw the how different Satir vehicles and Steven Young lessons connected horizontally and vertically. Here, I explain two of dot-connections: how credible images map to the Ways of Seeing the World model and how liminality and change are related to specific Satir vehicles.

Mapping Credible Images to Ways of Seeing the World

During the day, Steven and I introduced the Ways of Seeing the World model. Below is a picture of it in four languages – English (black ink on top), Ukranian (blue), Russian (bright red), and Georgian (light red or black on bottom).  We explained that the basis for everything we do as helpers and healers is to move people from a hierarchical view of the world to an organic view of the world.

After that, Steven led a very good piece for a woman whose grandfathers had died in wars. Since we are training therapist / psychologists the biggest part of the group processing is to discuss the process, not so much what people learned personally (although there is a lot of it, for sure).

One woman commented how she noticed toward the end when Steven said “let me show you what didn’t happen” it really changed the dynamic and how it deepened the learning for the star (the person who offered themselves as the “client”). I explained that this was Steven presenting the star with credible images of how she could make the change in herself that she desired. I wove in that every time you hear those words, you know that a credible image of change is being presented, and that the change will move the star’s way of seeing the world from Hierarchical to Organic. I invited the trainees to consider which of the four aspects of the Ways of Seeing the World model (the rows in the chart above) we are presenting a credible image of each time we say “let me show you what didn’t happen”. It was a great connect-the-dots teaching, that was very helpful to the attendees.

How Liminality and Change are Related to Specific Satir Vehicles

In the evening, we presented a special seminar on Liminality for people who paid in advance. During that, Steven explained that when you get to the point in working with someone where they need to change the meaning about themselves and accept how deeply they love instead of feeling worthless, that is the sacrifice required for change to happen here and now in the liminal space. For those more familiar with the work of Virginia Satir, we are talking about the Feeling about the Longing in the Anger Model.

In addition to making a sacrifice yourself, it is the practitioners job to judge the sacrifice of the client – is it enough the create the change desired? If it is not enough, you don’t judge it as such. You cannot ask for, let alone demand, the sacrifice. You can explain what is required for the desired change to occur; but you cannot ask the client to do it. You can only judge the sacrifice they make and not let something go that will not suffice for the client.